


Curiosity

by osprey_archer



Category: Pushing Daisies
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 08:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Could you bring to life a pair of leather shoes and make them spontaneously tap dance?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosity

“So how dead does a dead thing have to be before you can’t bring it back?” Chuck asked.

Ned revivified a peach and put it to Chuck’s cutting board. “What?” he asked. 

“Dirt is technically made of dead stuff, but it doesn’t come back to life when you touch it,” she said, slicing the new peach in half. “I’m just wondering how close to life something has to be before your magic works on it.” 

Another peach bloomed red and orange in Ned's hand. “It’s not magic,” he protested. 

“Could you bring to life a pair of leather shoes and make them spontaneously tap dance?” 

“I can't bring back leather, and anyway, I doubt that a dismembered cow would want to tap dance.”

“And I’ve seen you eat meat,” said Chuck. “Do you think it’s because it’s cooked that you can’t bring it back? Because leather goes through the tanning process which also changed its chemical composition, so maybe that makes you unable to bring things back, except I must have been autopsied, not to mention embalmed, so — ”

Ned's hand flinched on a peach, and it fell to the floor. 

“ - clearly it's not the chemistry," Chuck continued, bright-eyed with interest. Her knife paused. “Maybe it depends on how complete the body is. Have you and Emerson ever had a dismemberment case?"

"No!" said Ned. He picked up the peach, and it rotted again at this second touch. He tossed it in the trash. 

"You know what would be fun?" Chuck said. "If we went to the mummy room in the Museum of Natural History - ”

“No,” said Ned, with rising panic. “No, that would not be fun, the guards would probably hang us by our thumbs and also it isn’t like we could talk to the mummy - ”

“I speak Egyptian!” said Chuck. 

Ned gawped. 

“Or modern Arabic, anyway,” she conceded. “And a mummy probably couldn’t talk any more than that poor football player. But maybe we could communicate through gestures. Wouldn’t it be exciting to find out who really killed Tutankhamen?” 

Ned, in need of distraction, took a peach from his small supply of fresh fruit. “Haven’t you ever seen _The Mummy_?” he asked, through a mouthful. 

“No, Aunts Lily and Vivian don’t like monster movies.” Chuck pared a peach in silence. Ned wished he could pat her shoulder in sympathy. He took another bite of peach instead, juicy and tart.

“What about taxidermy?” she asked. “Can you bring to life taxidermied animals?” 

“Yes,” said Ned, and added - because Chuck was like a truth magnet, or maybe a truth vacuum - “Once I brought a bunch of dissection frogs to life and set them on my classmates.” 

Chuck laughed, delighted. Definitely a truth vacuum: just sharing with her made Ned feel cleaner and brighter. 

He continued, encouraged. “And once I brought a bearskin rug to life in a fancy hotel, but it bit Emerson’s ankle so we caught it before anything else - " 

He stuttered a little, because he didn't like to remind Chuck of the last restriction on his power: to remind her of the price for her being alive again. He took another bite of his peach. 

"Before anything else died," Chuck said quietly, finishing his sentence. 

The peaches weren’t very sweet this time of year. He set his peach aside and started weaving a trellis top for a cherry pie. “Chuck,” he said, absorbed in the delicate trellis so he couldn't look at her. “If people found out about... Do you think I’d go to prison?” 

“Prison?”

“For murder.”

“For something that happened when you were ten? I think most people would realize—”

Ned bit his lip, interweaving the thin, flaky slices of piecrust. “For...you.” 

He tore one of the strips of crust. “I don’t know,” Chuck said, and he looked up, but she wasn't looking at him. She spun her knife on the counter, staring at her own hands and the light flashing off the blade. 

Ned carefully crimped the torn crust back together and positioned the break beneath another length of crust. Chuck sliced some more peaches.

“Ned,” she said suddenly, knife flashing through the peach flesh. “How long have you had Digby?” 

“Since I was a kid. I had him when we first met. Remember that time he ate a whole plate of cookies my mom made us for snack?”

Her mouth smiled, but her eyes stayed distant, fixed on something in her mind. Ned's stomach tightened. "That was twenty years ago, right?” she said. 

His throat felt dry. “So?”

“He’s in really good shape.” A lock of hair fell into her face. “Twenty’s awfully old for a dog. And Olive says you never take him to the vet….” 

Ned swallowed. 

“Am I going to live forever?” 

The peach juice had dried his mouth, sugar sucking out all the moisture. “I don’t…” 

“And if I do—I can’t bring you back, if you…when you..." Her voice cracked, and she looked up at him, brown eyes glistening. "I really want to hold your hand right now."

Ned wanted to hold her hand too. He revivified a peach for her instead, cupping it in his hands till it was warm, and setting it on her cutting board. Chuck lifted it in her palms, and held it up to breathe in its scent. 

At last she set it down again, and skewered the new peach. The bright warm summer scent of peaches pushed back the shadows. “Ned?” she said, looking at him sideways, a mischievous grin growing. 

“Yeah?” said Ned, trying to smile. 

"Want to go to the dinosaur museum?"


End file.
